


i'll fall alone in the dark

by Areiton



Category: Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Character Study, F/M, Gen, Grief/Mourning, James "Rhodey" Rhodes & Tony Stark Friendship, James "Rhodey" Rhodes is a Good Bro, Parent Tony Stark, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Tony Stark Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-02
Updated: 2020-04-02
Packaged: 2021-02-28 18:54:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,940
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23452051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Areiton/pseuds/Areiton
Summary: He meets Spiderman on a battlefield but he meetsPetewhile he’s on his back in the compound. Tony is gone, chasing Rogers and Barnes and Rhodey aches to follow him and a kid is sitting in the corner of his room, his face a mess of bruises.
Relationships: James "Rhodey" Rhodes & Tony Stark, Pepper Potts/Tony Stark, Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Comments: 63
Kudos: 370





	i'll fall alone in the dark

Tony comes home. 

For days, weeks--since the dust coated that Wakandan battlefield and they realized just how much they’d lost--since Tony vanished without a trace and everyone decided that meant he was dead like Tony fucking Stark hadn’t made a lifelong habit of living just to spite the assholes who said he wouldn’t--

For too long, Rhodey had been quiet, faithfully _believing_ when arguing with Rogers and the rest did shit. 

Tony comes home, because Tony always comes home, and Rhodey is there, a step behind Rogers, fury burning through him because Rogers is the one taking him from Nebula, Rogers is staring at him, all hungry and desperate and incandescent, and that--that is _Rhodey’s_ job. 

Rhodey brings Tony home. 

Since that first night at MIT when he dragged a belligerently drunk billionaire out of a party and poured him into his bed, that has been his job, and he’s _good_ at it. 

Rogers holds him up and Rhodey’s eyes skip past Tony, up the walk where Nebula stands staring sadly at Rocket, and--

“I lost the kid,” Tony says and the world fucking _stops._

~*~ 

He meets Spiderman on a battlefield but he meets Pete while he’s on his back in the compound. Tony is gone, chasing Rogers and Barnes and Rhodey aches to follow him and a kid is sitting in the corner of his room, his face a mess of bruises. 

“Who are you?” he asks, his voice a rough rasp. 

“Hi, um, Colonel Rhodes. I thought--um. If you want. I can stay with you,” he says, bright and innocent in a way no one in this compound ever is. “I--if you want? I can call--” 

“There’s no one,” he says, before the kid can offer. Mama died, and Jenny--it’s better to leave her outta this. 

Tony is the only family he’s got. 

He doesn’t realize he’s said it aloud until the kid says, “My aunt--she’s all I have. And I know I’d want her, if I were where you are. I’m not Mr. Stark. But I’ll stay, until he gets back. If you want.” 

The kid looks braced for rejection and he _aches_ , a bone deep hurt that has nothing to do with his spine and everything to do with the team. 

Tony is the only family he’s got. The rest of them--

He opens his mouth to tell the kid to go. What he says is, “Pick a movie, kid. The silence is gonna get awkward.” 

~*~

Rogers dismisses it, says they all lost. 

It’s something he keeps turning over in his head, because he believes that. And yeah, ok, he’s not wrong. They all lost in a spectacular sort of way. 

But Tony reached out, confided in him--and Rogers didn’t even _understand._

“What kid?” Natasha asks, once Tony is in medical and they’re waiting to debrief. She’s looking at him, and Rogers does too, bland curiosity on his face. 

_The_ kid, Rhodey wants to say. 

Because there are kids--Harley, Riri, even the bots. 

But there’s is only one _kid._

How the hell does he explain Peter? How does he explain that Peter _saved_ Tony, saved _them?_ How does he explain a kid that was so damn good, so damn _brilliant_ , that it brought Tony back? That losing the Avengers, Rogers betrayal almost broke Tony, _did_ break Rhodey, and Peter was there, eager to learn, anxious to help, impossible to resist, and it was Peter who coaxed Tony out of his depression, who grinned at Rhodey when he came back, exhausted from PT. 

It was Peter, the need to protect him, the inability to stop him, that made Tony rework the Accords, that made Rhodey step back into the War Machine. 

Peter wasn’t just _s_ ome kid. 

In the end he explains it the only way he knows how, and he doesn’t give a damn how Rogers and the others take it. 

“Peter,” he says. “Tony’s son.” 

~*~

Peter was Tony’s first. 

But somewhere along the line, between movies and villains and science projects and lab experiments and takeout at three a.m., he became Rhodey’s too. 

He knew Tony would be a good dad. He’d seen the way Tony was with the bots and with Harley, with his niece until-- 

Tony was always going to be an amazing father, and Rhodey--Rhodey was always going to be that uncle, solid and steady, who spoiled the kids rotten and dragged them into and out of trouble, just like he always had for Tony. 

~*~ 

He sits by Tony’s bed, the same place he’s always sat when Tony was hurt, and waits. 

Because he has always been the place where Tony falls, the place he crashes apart, and Tony is being piece back together, is alive, even if the doctors aren’t sure _how_ , even if he’s more fragile than Rhodey has _ever_ seen him.

He sits by Tony’s bed, and he waits. 

And after twelve hours, Tony blinks, stirs restless on his bed and Rhodey shifts. 

It _hurts_ , watching Tony’s face, the way it crumples, heartbreak and grief writ so sharp in the lines on his face, in the emptiness of his eyes, in the way he reaches out, blindly grasping and chokes out, “ _Peter.”_

Rhodey catches him. 

Rhodey catches him, holds him together while Tony sobs against his chest, and he never once cries himself. 

~*~ 

He watches Tony throw his heart at Rogers, watches him fall apart. 

He watches when he tells Pepper about Peter, watches grief age her pretty face in a way that he can feel in his own bones. 

He listens to the mad plan to rewrite time, and he goes with them, because there’s a chance, thin and grasping and he doesn’t trust Rogers, doesn’t trust _any_ of them, but he can’t back away from the chance. 

It fails. 

It fails, and they fail. 

~*~ 

He doesn’t know if it’s worse that Tony doesn’t look surprised, crippled, by their failure, or not. 

~*~ 

Tony is different, after Titan. 

The world is different, and that matters, but _Tony_ has been the epicenter of his life for over thirty years, and this is no different. 

He’s withdrawn, quiet, refuses to engage with the remaining Avengers at all. He’s touch starved in a way Rhodey hasn’t seen since college, spending long hours in Rhodey’s lap or curled into his side. 

He never talks about Peter, though. He clings, and sometimes, he cries, and Rhodey is steady and solid and holds him together when Tony is falling apart. 

Once. 

Just once. Tony looks at him and says, softly, “I miss him, platypus.” 

Rhodey holds him tighter. “Me, too, peacock.” 

~*~ 

The truth is--he does. 

He misses Peter so much it _aches._

The whole world lost, the whole fucking galaxy did, but Rhodey’s world has been small since Mama died, and Jenny walked out of his life. 

His family is Tony, and the people Tony gathers around him. And all of them--Pepper, Happy, _Tony_ \--survived. 

Peter is the gaping hole in their world, the missing piece that no one can look past, and he misses him, a visceral aching loss that he can’t get past, and doesn’t know how to live with. 

~*~

Mama died. 

She died in a home invasion that made no goddamn sense, a random act of senseless violence.

Jenny didn’t. 

Jenny didn’t but she walked away. Rhodey was a superhero who couldn’t keep his family safe, who had chosen a rich white boy and left their family behind. 

And maybe that wasn’t the whole story, wasn’t the true story--but it’s the story Jenny told, and she scooped up his niece and vanished and he lost his Mama and his baby sister and his baby niece and he never quite got over that. 

He _couldn’t_ get over losing his entire family in less than a month. He lived with it and through it and he carried it with him. 

Losing Peter is like that. 

He carries it with him. 

~*~ 

The world is a crumbling mess and the Avengers are broken, scattered. Tony doesn’t care and Tony doesn’t _care,_ long enough that Rogers comes to Rhodey, intent and earnest and concerned. 

“He almost died,” Rhodey says. 

“His son died in his arms,” he says. 

“He isn’t going to _fix_ this,” he says. 

“Fix your own goddamn mess,” he snarls. 

He leaves Rogers there, starled and shocked and Tony curls in his lap and neither of them talk about it. 

~*~ 

Sometimes. 

When the Compound is quiet and the world is still and the grief is swamping, he will go to Peter’s room, curl in a corner and cry, silent and shaking, for the child that they lost.

His grief is an immense and private thing, small in comparison to Tony’s all-consuming loss. 

He grieves alone, falls apart in the dark where no one can see him, and in the morning, he smiles and he nudges Tony to eat and he puts on the suit and goes out to piece the world together. 

~*~ 

Tony tells him. Pepper is asleep on the couch and they’re sitting outside, the eerie silence almost familiar after a year. The air is clearer, and as he stares up at the star spangled sky he dreams he can see Titan. 

“We’re moving,” Tony says. Rhodey closes his eyes. Unsurprised, but still--it stings. “I can’t do this anymore,” Tony says, soft, plaintive. 

“I know,” Rhodey says. 

They’re silent, Tony leaning against his shoulder and the stars overhead. 

~*~ 

The night before they move, Rhodey finds himself almost at a loss. Pepper is already gone, supervising the movers. Tony is awkward and anxious at a team dinner for a broken team he doesn’t trust. Rhodey--Rhodey feels torn between two worlds and he misses Peter so much it _hurts._

He slips into the boy’s room in the dark, when the Compound is quiet and it doesn’t smell like Pete anymore, but it still _looks_ like him, layered in every surface and space, and he feels familiar tears prickle the back of his eyes. 

He’s only a little surprised when Tony slips in behind him, curls on the bed against his back. 

“You never said you missed him,” Tony whispers. 

“He wasn’t mine to miss,” Rhodey says, and it’s _true_ and it’s _not._

“Pete belonged to all of us,” Tony says, fierce and sad. “He loved _all_ of us.” 

Rhodey shudders, twists and hides his face against Tony’s chest, and cries. 

Tony’s arms around him hold him together as he falls apart. 

~*~ 

It never stops hurting. 

It never gets _easier._

But the dam breaks, and Tony talks about Pete, sometimes. 

Rhodey does. Pepper does. 

Sometimes, Rhodey can think about him and it’s a familiar ache instead of a needle sharp stabbing pain. Sometimes, he can think about him and he smiles. 

~*~ 

The world spins on and he does what he can to fix it, to put it to rights. 

Pepper has a little girl and she isn’t Peter, won’t ever replace him, but she’s brilliant and beautiful and Tony smiles at her, holds her like she’s precious and grins, proud and pleased and eager to share this miracle with him and Rhodey holds her, holds his niece and blinks back tears. 

“You’ve got the best daddy in the whole world, sweetheart,” he whispers. 

~*~ 

Scott comes and he brings _hope_ with him and Tony--

Tony kisses the sweetest smartest baby in the world and puts on the suit and lays it all on the line, his eyes bright and fiercely determined, and Rhodey thinks, again, the same thing he’s thought so many times. 

Tony was always going to be an amazing father.


End file.
